


soul meets body

by bravepress



Series: there are roads left in both of our shoes [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravepress/pseuds/bravepress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is freezing and he is falling, over and over, until his throat is raw with the terrified noises he's failing to suppress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soul meets body

The first year goes badly.

 

HYDRA does its best to integrate him into their world of thought by depriving him of food and sleep. He is constantly covered in bruises; the bootprint on his ribs takes weeks to heal, even though his aches have been going away faster than usual. They want him weak (before they'll bother to rebuild his body, they must rebuild his mind). It takes several months for him to recognize that his left hand is now much stronger than his right.

He blocks with his flesh arm in training and gives himself a compound fracture. He is punished when he asks, voice tight, for painkillers. Eventually, he stops asking. 

This is what he remembers:

They wipe him.

They wipe him again and again, and then everything is cold. 

 

 

 

Later:

He does not complete the mission. His shoulder is dislocated, and the seam between the metal of his arm and the skin on his chest is throbbing in time with his heart rate. His body aches. The Soldier notices these things in the way that he would notice a knife blade being slightly duller than ideal. 

The mark falls from the helicarrier and he drags the still-breathing body to the banks of the river, idly observing the gutshot and the split lip.

He could complete the mission. It would be simple.

Instead, he walks away. 

 

 

 

He pulls a box of still-warm pizza out of a dumpster and most of it in the span of several minutes. He has not been fed in three days. It stays down for almost fifteen minutes before he has to slink into an alleyway and be sick against the side of a building. His body, used to nutrient slurry pumped into it through an i.v., does not remember how to process cheese, meat, or gluten. 

He straightens up and tries to reduce his dislocated shoulder, the way he has been programmed to do (there are corresponding programs for gunshot wounds, large abrasions, burns), but it does not return smoothly to its socket. It clicks when he manipulates the joint.

 

 

 

He does not remember much of what happens next:

When his body begins to malfunction he understands that he has very few options left. His handlers are gone, and with the mark still alive (mission: not completed) he would be unable to return to them even if he felt the need to. He could wait to die, but that seems impractical. 

He knocks on the door of a walk-up in D.C., the one he staked out a week or so ago. He is beginning to have trouble keeping track of time. 

The mark opens the door. He is unarmed, wearing a cardigan.  _Bucky? Are you-_

He says something, perhaps  _that isn't my name,_ or maybe  _the asset is damaged._ He can't remember. 

 

 

 

He wakes up on a gurney, with his wrist strapped to the guard rail. The mark is sitting in a plastic chair and the door is closed and 

he

is

trapped

and he is unsure of what's happening; he's dizzy and his skin feels to tight and he can barely tell which way is up. He wonders if he is concussed, but can't manage to draw up the protocol for assessment of head injuries. There are two large-bore i.v.s in his right arm. The skin around them is bruised and slightly puckered, as though his body is trying to reject them.

The mark has his hands out in front of him, a placating gesture, but the Soldier's first thought is  _no don't touch._

_Bucky-_

He wants to snarl  _no_ and  _help me_ but instead his body shuts down again. As he sinks back into the thick fog of unconsciousness he decides that this is better, anyway. His body will heal more efficiently if he is not awake.  _  
_

 

 

He is freezing and he is falling, over and over again until his throat is raw with the terrified noises he is failing to suppress.

 _Bucky, it's okay,_ says the mark- Steve- STEVE's voice.  _'m right here. You're in the hospital._

He isn't. He's not okay at all. Every time he reorients himself he starts to fall again.

His body is so cold. 

 _Not the ice_ is out of his mouth before he can stop it. _Please don't let me fall, I'm scared, fuck-_

It comes out fragmented. His thoughts are shattering, crystalline. 

_You're in the hospital. I swear. You've got a high fever, Buck, that's why you feel off balance. I swear you're not falling. I'm right here._

He dreams about trains. He dreams about long falls and blood and a small blond boy. 

 

 

 

He dreams. That's the important part. He hasn't dreamed in a very long time. 

 


End file.
